Synopses & Reviews
Taylor Branch, author of the acclaimed America in the King Years trilogy, presents the essential moments of civil rights history in clear context and gripping detail. The King Years delivers riveting tales of everyday heroes who achieved miracles in constructive purpose and yet poignantly fell short. Here is the full sweep of an era that still reverberates in national politics. Its legacy remains unsettled; there are further lessons to be discovered before free citizens can once again move officials to address the most intractable, fearful dilemmas. This vital primer amply fulfills its authors dedication: “For students of freedom and teachers of history.”
This compact volume brings to life eighteen pivotal dramas, beginning with the impromptu speech that turned an untested, twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King forever into a public figure on the first night of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Five years later, minority students filled the jails in a 1960 sit-in movement, and, in 1961, the Freedom Riders seized national attention.
Branch interprets Kings famous speech at the 1963 March on Washington, then relives the Birmingham church bombing that challenged his dream of equal souls and equal votes. We see student leader Bob Moses mobilize college volunteers for Mississippis 1964 Freedom Summer, and a decade-long movement at last secures the first of several landmark laws for equal rights. At the same time, the presidential nominating conventions were drawn into sharp and unprecedented party realignment.
In “King, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Nobel Peace Prize,” Branch details the covert use of state power for a personal vendetta. “Crossroads in Selma” describes Kings ordeal to steer the battered citizens movement through hopes and threats from every level of government. “Crossroads in Vietnam” glimpses the ominous wartime split between King and President Lyndon Johnson. As backlash shadowed a Chicago campaign to expose northern prejudice, and the Black Power slogan of Stokely Carmichael captivated a world grown weary of nonviolent protest, King grew ever more isolated. As Branch writes, King “pushed downward into lonelier causes until he wound up among the sanitation workers of Memphis.” A requiem chapter leads to his fateful assassination.
Review
“Right out of the pages of our lives….Compelling portraits placed in the excitement of a period when oppressed and powerless people moving together changed themselves and their country profoundly and permanently.”
Review
“In remarkable, meticulous detail, Branch provides us with the most complex and unsentimental version of King and his times yet produced.”
Review
“There will be the inevitable comparisons to Carl Sandburg’s Abraham Lincoln and Shelby Foote’s The Civil War, two other masterworks that use the grand sweep of history to lay barethe nation’s soul.”
Review
“Branch is as eloquent and trenchant as ever…the book recalls and revitalizes a history that deserves its details” < -="" b="" -=""> - < -="" i="" -=""> - The Boston Globe - < -="" -=""> - < -="" -="">
Review
On the America in the King Years trilogy: “Right out of the pages of our lives….Compelling portraits placed in the excitement of a period when oppressed and powerless people moving together changed themselves and their country profoundly and permanently.” < -="" b="" -=""> - < -="" i="" -=""> - The New York Times - < -="" -=""> - < -="" -="">
Review
“Instead of getting a dry dates-and-events history book, readers are gifted with glimpses of life and ‘historically significant’ events, presented almost in the form of a novel.” < -="" b="" -=""> - < -="" i="" -=""> - Augusta Chronicle - < -="" -=""> - (GA) - < -="" -="">
Synopsis
The essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement are set in historical context by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the magisterial America in the King Years trilogy--Parting the Waters; Pillar of Fire; and At Canaan's Edge.Taylor Branch, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning America in the King Years trilogy, presents selections from his monumental work that recount the essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement. A masterpiece of storytelling on race and democracy, violence and nonviolence, The King Years delivers riveting tales of everyday heroes whose stories inspire us still. Here is the full sweep of an era that transformed America and continues to offer crucial lessons for today's world. This vital primer amply fulfills Branch's dedication: "For students of freedom and teachers of history."
Synopsis
The essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement are introduced and set in historical context by the author of the magisterial America in the King Years trilogy—Parting the Waters; Pillar of Fire; and At Canaan’s Edge.Taylor Branch’s three-volume history endures as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. With this brief volume, which brings to life the pivotal scenes, he relates the dramatic story of how the Movement evolved from a bus strike to a political revolution, and brings this historic achievement to a wider audience.
Synopsis
The essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement are set in historical context by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the magisterial America in the King Years trilogy—Parting the Waters; Pillar of Fire; and At Canaan’s Edge.The King Years brings to life eighteen pivotal dramas, beginning with the impromptu speech that turned an untested, twenty-six-year-old Martin Luther King forever into a public figure on the first night of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Five years later, minority students filled the jails in a 1960 sit-in movement, and, in 1961, the Freedom Riders seized national attention. Branch interprets King’s famous speech at the 1963 March on Washington and the Birmingham church bombing that challenged his dream. We see student leader Bob Moses mobilize college volunteers for Mississippi’s 1964 Freedom Summer, and a decade-long movement for equal rights.
“Crossroads in Selma” describes King’s ordeal to steer the citizen’s movement through hopes and threats. “Crossroads in Vietnam” glimpses the ominous wartime split between King and President Lyndon Johnson. As the Black Power slogan of Stokely Carmichael captivated a world grown weary of nonviolent protest, King grew ever more isolated. King “pushed downward into lonelier causes until he wound up among the sanitation workers of Memphis.” A requiem chapter leads to his assassination.
Synopsis
Taylor Branch, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning America in the King Years trilogy, presents selections from his monumental work that recount the essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement. A masterpiece of storytelling on race and democracy, violence and nonviolence, The King Years delivers riveting tales of everyday heroes whose stories inspire us still. Here is the full sweep of an era that transformed America and continues to offer crucial lessons for today’s world. This vital primer amply fulfills Branch’s dedication: “For students of freedom and teachers of history.”
About the Author
Taylor Branch is the bestselling author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65; At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968; and The Clinton Tapes. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.